Description

The macro
define-automation-component
defines a
standard-class
which is used to implement an Automation component. Normal
defclass
inheritance rules apply for slots and Lisp methods.

Each
superclass-name
argument specifies a direct superclass of the new class, which can be any
standard-class
provided that certain standard classes are included somewhere in the overall class precedence list. These standard classes depend on the other options and provide the default superclass list if none is specified. The following standard classes are available:

standard-i-dispatch
is always needed and provides a complete implementation of the
i-dispatch
interface, based on the type information in the type library.

standard-i-connection-point-container
is needed if there are any source interfaces specified (via the
:coclass
or
:source-interfaces
options). This provides a complete implementation of the Connection Point protocols.

slot-specifier
s are standard
defclass
slot definitions.

class-option
s are standard
defclass
options. In addition the following options are recognized:

(
:coclass
coclass-name
)

coclass-name
is a symbol specifying the name of a coclass. If this option is specified then a class factory will be registered for this coclass, to create an instance of
class-name
when another application requires it. The component will implement the interfaces specified in the coclass definition and the default interface will be returned by the class factory.

Exactly one of
:coclass
and
:interfaces
must be specified.

(
:interfaces
interface-name
*)

Each
interface-name
specifies an Automation interface that the object will implement. The
i-unknown
and
i-dispatch
interfaces should not be specified because their implementations are automatically inherited from
standard-i-dispatch
. No class factory will be registered for
class-name
, so the only way to make instances is from with Lisp by calling
make-instance
.

Exactly one of
:coclass
and
:interfaces
must be specified.

(
:source-interfaces
interface-name
*)

Each
interface-name
specifies a source interface on which the object allows connections to be made. If the
:coclass
option is also specified, then the interfaces flagged with the
source attribute are used as the default for the
:source-interfaces
option.

When there are event interfaces, the component automatically implements the
IConnectionPointContainer
interface. The supporting interfaces
IEnumConnectionPoints
,
IConnectionPoint
and
IEnumConnections
are also provided automatically.

(
:extra-interfaces
interface-name
*)

Each
interface-name
specifies a COM interface that the object will implement, in addition to the interfaces implied by the
:coclass
option. This allows the object to implement other interfaces not mentioned in the type library.

(
:coclass-reusable-p
reusable
)

If
reusable
is true (the default), then the server running the component can receive requests from more than one application. If
reusable
is
nil
, then the server will receive requests only from the application that started it and the Operating System will start a new instance of the server if required. For more details, see
REGCLS_MULTIPLEUSE
and
REGCLS_SINGLEUSE
in MSDN.